Nearly all the posts so far are about research use of genetic information. Research data should be responsibly anonymized, but privacy standards for corporate and government (read: law enforcement) use of individuals' DNA samples should be much more strictly regulated.
I don't mind if my DNA is used for medical research, even non-anonymously, but the though of it being used by insurance companies or law enforcement is infuriating.
These are all good steps. For me, though, the main issue with DNA testing of criminal suspects is its unreliability. Hopefully as sequencing costs continue to fall rigorous testing will become required.
Just like the money that funds the Air Force, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and everything else not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, right?
Planned Parenthood is not a government program, and is not administered by the government. It is a private, non-profit corporation which has received some (currently about 30%) of its funding from government grants ever since President Nixon signed the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act.
Can you or anyone explain to me how it happened that, with patents on machines, it is the method and process that is claimed, but with software it is the functionality itself?
My understanding is that two people can both build, say, a flashlight if the operating principle is different (e.g. shaken capacitor drives a LED vs. solar-charged battery powers an incandescent). But software patents seem to cover the very concept of meeting requests or search suggestions, etc.
There were far fewer abortions before modern birth control
It should say, "before modern abortion procedures," but it's probably false either way.
Documents from Margaret Sanger and her colleagues and contemporaries suggest that secret, unsafe and illegal abortions had become very common by the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Both quantitative modern, and qualitative historical, data suggest that abortion has always been prevalent. Abortion was legal in the United States and commonly advertised commercially until its illegalization in the late 19th century, to say nothing of similar evidence from England and continental Europe. In the US, even discussion of abortion and contraception were criminalized (by the Comstock laws), so a dearth of related documents from that era means nothing.
the stigmas against both abortion and single motherhood are gone
That's just false. The stigma is lessened, in some places.
The named "right wingers" who "consider contraception to be pre-emptive abortion" are working against the end of reducing abortion.
Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood largely out of opposition to abortions, which at the time were dangerous, illegal and far more prevalent than they are today.
I do my own taxes, occasionally my parents' taxes, and, for many years, the taxes of my non-profit corporation (sales, use, local, state and IRS filings other than income tax). Sometimes it's a little confusing, but my questions have always been resolved by reading the relevant statutes.
I'm not saying the tax code isn't too complex, because it is, I'm saying that "wahh, I can't figure this out!" is not a believable complaint coming from highly educated rich people.
You are both interpolating a relation to socialized healthcare when in fact there is none.
Free birth control programs are means tested and small in scale compared to insured and uninsured purchases. FYI, three months of Nuvaring costs $60-$120 or so depending on location.
Nothing to do with socialized medicine. He wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood. Many if not most American woman buy (and, sometimes, are given) birth control from Planned Parenthood, which is invested in educating people about safe and proper use.
Ultimately, defunding an organization that exists to reduce the prevalence of abortion will not somehow reduce the prevalence of abortion.
Also, because Intel licenses the x86_64 architecture from AMD. If AMD was going away - and didn't need to keep cross licensing x86 - they could sink Intel's 64-bit lines. Unless the license terms prevent something like that...but if AMD was dismantled one day, I can imaging a troll getting a hold on the IP.
I never said it was limited and cheap - quite the opposite. Right now, we need petroleum to make plastics, and we need those plastics for a bunch of technologies on which we are dependent. If we didn't have the petroleum, recycling - at an energetic and monetary loss - would be the only way to keep using those plastics (absent some plant-oil alternatives).
It's possible (even likely) that the price of the recycled plastics would increase so that their production would be only an energetic loss, not a monetary one.
I had a wonderful organic chemistry professor who required the use of his own textbook. He believed his book was the best, but recognized the conflict of interest, which he resolved by giving the royalty payments as a scholarship to the highest scoring male and female students at the end of the course.
We all respected him for that...but we'd have taken a free electronic copy instead any day, I think.
Scientific papers can be published online for next to no cost
It's not that simple. Yes, we can publish technical reports on our university websites for free, however the peer-reviewed, open access journals (PLoS, BMC, etc.) charge a ~$1,000 fee per article. The impact factors are high, you get a creative commons license and anyone can read your work, but it's not free.
Slashdot Mirror
Nearly all the posts so far are about research use of genetic information. Research data should be responsibly anonymized, but privacy standards for corporate and government (read: law enforcement) use of individuals' DNA samples should be much more strictly regulated.
I don't mind if my DNA is used for medical research, even non-anonymously, but the though of it being used by insurance companies or law enforcement is infuriating.
These are all good steps. For me, though, the main issue with DNA testing of criminal suspects is its unreliability. Hopefully as sequencing costs continue to fall rigorous testing will become required.
Just like the money that funds the Air Force, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and everything else not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, right?
Planned Parenthood is not a government program, and is not administered by the government. It is a private, non-profit corporation which has received some (currently about 30%) of its funding from government grants ever since President Nixon signed the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act.
Can you or anyone explain to me how it happened that, with patents on machines, it is the method and process that is claimed, but with software it is the functionality itself?
My understanding is that two people can both build, say, a flashlight if the operating principle is different (e.g. shaken capacitor drives a LED vs. solar-charged battery powers an incandescent). But software patents seem to cover the very concept of meeting requests or search suggestions, etc.
Am I missing something?
There were far fewer abortions before modern birth control
It should say, "before modern abortion procedures," but it's probably false either way.
Documents from Margaret Sanger and her colleagues and contemporaries suggest that secret, unsafe and illegal abortions had become very common by the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Both quantitative modern, and qualitative historical, data suggest that abortion has always been prevalent. Abortion was legal in the United States and commonly advertised commercially until its illegalization in the late 19th century, to say nothing of similar evidence from England and continental Europe. In the US, even discussion of abortion and contraception were criminalized (by the Comstock laws), so a dearth of related documents from that era means nothing.
the stigmas against both abortion and single motherhood are gone
That's just false. The stigma is lessened, in some places.
The named "right wingers" who "consider contraception to be pre-emptive abortion" are working against the end of reducing abortion.
Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood largely out of opposition to abortions, which at the time were dangerous, illegal and far more prevalent than they are today.
I do my own taxes, occasionally my parents' taxes, and, for many years, the taxes of my non-profit corporation (sales, use, local, state and IRS filings other than income tax). Sometimes it's a little confusing, but my questions have always been resolved by reading the relevant statutes.
I'm not saying the tax code isn't too complex, because it is, I'm saying that "wahh, I can't figure this out!" is not a believable complaint coming from highly educated rich people.
You are both interpolating a relation to socialized healthcare when in fact there is none.
Free birth control programs are means tested and small in scale compared to insured and uninsured purchases. FYI, three months of Nuvaring costs $60-$120 or so depending on location.
Nothing to do with socialized medicine. He wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood. Many if not most American woman buy (and, sometimes, are given) birth control from Planned Parenthood, which is invested in educating people about safe and proper use.
Ultimately, defunding an organization that exists to reduce the prevalence of abortion will not somehow reduce the prevalence of abortion.
Maybe, only in the book his interlocutor just gets offended.
I think the reason that ideas like this keep showing up is that people do not understand the sampling theorem.
Well, they consistently want to make family planning illegal. That's not all the same as wanting to make fewer abortions happen.
It demonstrates an error in logical thinking faculties.
This guy makes 'em all over the place. For example, he thinks that denying people birth control will reduce abortions.
"How can a man of integrity get along in Washington?"
- Feynman
He can't be that smart; he claims he and his wife working together (3 MIT eng. degrees total) can't do their taxes.
The tax code isn't exactly simple, but come on.
Also, because Intel licenses the x86_64 architecture from AMD. If AMD was going away - and didn't need to keep cross licensing x86 - they could sink Intel's 64-bit lines. Unless the license terms prevent something like that...but if AMD was dismantled one day, I can imaging a troll getting a hold on the IP.
That's just poor UI programming. Don't use static layouts.
And, of course, both versions of the function were written by the same person...
Which, in retrospect, just proves your point...
A bunch of languages call functions subroutine or "sub," e.g. Perl and BASIC off the top of my head
(in older BASIC codes you see lots of "GOSUB" keywords, the GOTO version of a function call).
You're one of the best lawyers in America, how could you even make that kind of argument?
I never said it was limited and cheap - quite the opposite. Right now, we need petroleum to make plastics, and we need those plastics for a bunch of technologies on which we are dependent. If we didn't have the petroleum, recycling - at an energetic and monetary loss - would be the only way to keep using those plastics (absent some plant-oil alternatives).
It's possible (even likely) that the price of the recycled plastics would increase so that their production would be only an energetic loss, not a monetary one.
I had a wonderful organic chemistry professor who required the use of his own textbook. He believed his book was the best, but recognized the conflict of interest, which he resolved by giving the royalty payments as a scholarship to the highest scoring male and female students at the end of the course.
We all respected him for that...but we'd have taken a free electronic copy instead any day, I think.
Scientific papers can be published online for next to no cost
It's not that simple. Yes, we can publish technical reports on our university websites for free, however the peer-reviewed, open access journals (PLoS, BMC, etc.) charge a ~$1,000 fee per article. The impact factors are high, you get a creative commons license and anyone can read your work, but it's not free.